Cancer researcher joins College of Pharmacy

Award-winning molecular biologist Andre S. Bachmann joins the University of Hawaii at Hilo College of Pharmacy as a tenured associate professor and chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, effective Sept. 1.

He also will remain a member of the Cancer Research Center of Hawaii and an adjunct associate professor with the John A. Burns School of Medicine.

Bachmann has been teaching and conducting research at the National Cancer Institute-(NCI) designated Cancer Research Center of Hawaii on Oahu since 2001.

In 2006, he received an NCI grant award and two grant supplements to study the pediatric cancer neuroblastoma, with the goal to identify better treatment options, in particular for patients with relapsed/refractory disease.

As a direct result of his research, the first neuroblastoma clinical trial with his novel treatment option (DFMO/etoposide) opened nationwide in 2010, and his achievements were recognized with the 2010 Inaugural Weinman Innovator Award for Translational Research.

In addition to his translational work, he also assembled an international team of scientists and together discovered a new class of active molecules that block the growth of cancer cells. The breakthrough study was reported in 2008 in the scientific journal Nature.

Bachmann is an editorial board member of seven scientific journals including the AACR journal Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, and he is an associate editor of Pharmaceutical Biology.

Bachmann has published 30 articles in peer-reviewed science journals and is currently writing two book chapters on the clinical application of polyamine inhibitor based drugs in neuroblastoma and other types of neurological cancer.